


A Rare Customer

by e_cat



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2019, M/M, Magic AU, Magic Shop, Magic plants and herbs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-11-14 18:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18058016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_cat/pseuds/e_cat
Summary: Neil is beginning to explore his talents in magic, now that he's on his own. Luckily, there are a variety of potion supply shops in Colombia, South Carolina, and he doesn't have to get too involved with any of them. He's definitely not going one particular shop more than any other...





	1. A Change Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a fic inspired by the lovely art by Niki (http://versinfinietaudela.tumblr.com/), as a part of the AFTG Reverse Big Bang. It will be posted in four parts. Here is part 1!
> 
> A special thanks to everyone else who participated in this event. There was a really great sense of community, and a bunch of people helped me out with beta-ing or cheering me on to get this done. So, extra-special shout-out to Ria, Casper, Ariana Renaldi, and lc for helping me out! You're all amazing!

Neil had learned to brew potions from his mother. When he was young, she would mix them on the stovetop while his father was otherwise occupied. She’d never let him close enough to see a thing until he was nearly ten years old.

Neil hadn’t known it at the time, but his mother had prepared a test for him. Up until then, Mary had brewed only simple potions – things that relied only on the ingredients, and not the hand mixing them. She’d come from a family steeped in magic, with none of her own. But there was always the chance that Neil would inherit what she hadn’t.

That day, Mary had started a different sort of potion. It was an elementary one, still, but it wouldn’t do a thing without a bit of human magic. She’d done every step but the last, and then she’d called Neil forward, poured a handful of crimson powder into his hand, and told him to stir it in.

He’d done it, and the mixture had sighed a fragrance of fresh-baked cookies throughout the room. Immediately, Mary had taken the pot out from under him and poured the whole thing down the drain. “You won’t tell your father about this,” she’d said to him.

That had been what really frightened him. Up until then, the potion-brewing had been a secret, but it had been the sort of secret that no one ever  _ said _ was secret. The implication lay hidden in the context: his mother only taking out her ingredients after his father had left; hurriedly hiding pots when he came back early; never speaking a word of it. That day with Neil’s first potion had been the first time she’d acknowledged the secrecy out loud.

As far as Neil knew, his father  _ still _ didn’t know of his magic. He’d had reports from the men he’d sent after them, surely, but all he would have heard was that a potion had cleared him and his mother from their memories, or that a spell had knocked the men off their trail.

Mary had been careful to see them always overprepared, with plenty of potions on hand for an emergency. With her strict planning, they’d never been in a situation desperate enough for Neil to use magic in front of their pursuers. Nathan knew that Mary came from magic; for all he knew, they were surviving off her connections alone. In fact, they  _ had _ mostly used other people’s magic, especially for the complicated things, especially while Neil was still learning. It was just that Neil’s spells were part of their survival, too.

That was a secret. Neil could never share that part of himself with anyone, because they would covet it and they would remember it. His mother had said it again as she’d died, Neil’s healing spells not enough to hold back the damage to her body: “Never show your magic. Don’t draw attention. Don’t let anyone close. Trust only yourself, and stay anonymous.”

Neil had followed the rules so far – or, he had until a few months ago. Without his mother to teach him or keep him from learning, Neil had been taking small steps into the world of magic. He’d found spell books – perhaps stolen one or two from used books stores. He’d learned where he could buy ingredients without questions asked, and he worked hard at being a rare customer at any establishment, unmemorable and inconspicuous.

That didn’t seem to work at  _ Aesculus pavia _ .

It was a small shop, quirky and underappreciated. The whole place was covered in plants – living, freshly picked, and dried; healing, toxic, and inconsequential. Neil had only once seen a person besides the cashier inside, but he was proficient enough in potions to know that no other shop in the area came close to matching the quality of fennel on those shelves. That was tempting enough to draw Neil back in itself; stronger ingredients meant a stronger concealment potion.

But then there was something else. The man behind the counter. He was unfriendly and seemed to have little interest in his customers, which Neil had originally taken as a positive. He hadn’t realized his misconception for far too long: Andrew was not so unobservant as he seemed.

Two months ago, when Neil had come in to stock up on caraway seeds, Andrew had glanced up from the heavy book on the counter and told him, “We moved the caraway to the end of the row. Third shelf.” And he’d gone back to reading as if nothing had happened.

It had left Neil in a near-panic that night. He wasn’t supposed to be memorable, and neither were his herb choices. It was slightly terrifying to think that someone could have learned something about him from just a few visits to an herb shop.

But in the end, the quality of ingredients had drawn Neil back, a moth to flame. It was dangerous and stupid, but making potions was something that made Neil feel like he still mattered. He was invisible in every way he could make himself, but he could still make a potion with a chance at impressing an expert, if he were to ever take the risk of showing it to someone.

It left Neil feeling guilty, though. Every time he stepped into Andrew’s shop – into any shop that he’d been to before – it was at the risk of undoing every step his mother had taken towards concealing them. He shouldn’t even be staying in the same city this long; it was just nice to be able to set up his own space for potions, and he’d somehow managed to slip past his own guard and collect more than he could carry. He couldn’t bring himself to move on and start over again.

Just like he couldn’t bring himself to avoid the best ingredient source he’d ever seen.

Today, it was rosemary that drew him into the  _ Aesculus pavia _ . He needed it for his mother, for remembrance, and he told himself that at least it had been two weeks since he’d last been here. Well, eleven days, but surely that was still long enough.

“Looking for fennel?” Andrew asked as Neil entered the shop. “New batch next Tuesday. You can dry it yourself.”

“Uh, no, thanks,” Neil replied simply, though the thought of fresh fennel was strongly tempting. The freshest he’d seen it was two weeks, and he could only imagine what he could do with a batch that was newly picked, or that his own hands had prepared for drying.

Andrew didn’t seem interested in what it was that Neil  _ was _ looking for; he was already back to reading his book. It was another large tome, and Neil couldn’t help but wonder about the topic. It could be a book of spells or potions, and Neil felt a stab of envy at the thought. He’d never had the opportunity to study large texts like that. A heavy book would have slowed them down, if they’d even had the time to take it with them. Besides, Neil was proving it himself: books that large caught people’s attention.

Turning away from the counter, Neil browsed through the shelves. He hadn’t picked up any rosemary here before, but even if he’d known where to find it, he might have taken a look around anyways. Every now and then, there was a surprise hidden on these shelves – some rare herb, or some bargain Neil couldn’t have imagined.

Today was not a disappointment. Tucked away in a corner, almost impossible to notice behind a display of ground pimento, was a tiny vial of Hemlock’s Blessing.

Neil caught his breath. The last time he’d seen this, he’d been thirteen, sticking close to his mother in a cramped room in the back of a pastry shop in Germany. His mother had handed over a wad of bills in silence, and the the flour-dusted man who’d let them in had made good on whatever deal they’d previously arranged. He’d done a quick brew job, and Hemlock’s Blessing had been the last ingredient he’d added.

Once it was done, Neil and his mother had been hurried out the back of the shop. The explanation had been pushed off until they were three countries away, in a rundown hotel with a gun under both of their pillows. The potion that the pastry man had brewed was for neutralizing a curse, one that one of his father’s hired men had thrown at them days before. The Hemlock’s Blessing was the heart of it – it was an ingredient strong enough convince even a weak potion to give its all. And it was incredibly rare.

In order to collect a vial of Hemlock’s Blessing, one must first find a hemlock tree. After that, it was a little more complicated. Some legends said that you must make the tree weep; some said that you should perform an act of invaluable service. All that could be said for sure was that one must have magic to collect the Blessing, and the only people who knew how were rather stingy about sharing.

Neil gingerly took the vial from the shelf. He had no idea what he would do with it – he didn’t think any of the potions in his book even mentioned it. But it was somehow impossible to resist the idea of it. He was struck with a yearning to possess this tiny spark of a tree’s benevolence. Even more than that: he was filled with a hunger to find it himself.

Neil went up to the counter and set the vial down in front of Andrew’s book. Andrew glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how to use that?” he questioned skeptically.

No, not really, but Neil wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Where did you get it?” he asked.

Andrew looked immediately uninterested. “In a forest,” he replied, already going back to his book.

Neil put his hand over the page. “ _ How _ did you get it?” he clarified. Andrew stared flatly at him, the sort of look that said,  _ if you have to ask… _

“Can you show me?” Neil tried again.

Andrew considered him for a moment, looking almost curious, before he turned his attention to pruning the roses that grew along the edge of the counter. “No.”

Neil felt vaguely insulted. After all, Andrew’s refusal hadn’t been immediate, like he wasn’t refusing on principal, but because of who was asking.

“Why not?” he demanded. “I have magic. I can do it.”

“Those statements are not the same thing,” Andrew replied, turning to scan the multitude of titles on the bookshelf behind him. Although, the titles couldn’t be what he was looking at, because not even half of them displayed one on the spine.

“If you don’t show me,” Neil said, “I will go out to the forest and do it myself, and for all you know, I could piss off all the hemlock trees so bad that they never bless anything again.”

Andrew turned his head enough to raise an eyebrow at Neil. “It would take several months to annoy every hemlock tree in a fifty-mile radius,” he said calmly. “I could be quite well-stocked by then.”

“Well –” Neil huffed. He was too thrown by Andrew’s unrufflable nature to queue up another retort. Truthfully, before today, he’d never aspired to harvest magical ingredients for himself. That didn’t change the fact that he wanted to now.

He remembered the games in elementary school – picking dewy leaves and holding them just so, protecting the imaginary fairy dust in their curves. His mother had forbidden it when she’d found out, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still calm Neil to gently remove a single leaf from a tree. He’d always been the best at keeping the dew where it was.

While Neil was trying to formulate a good response, Andrew had found a thin binder tucked among the books. He slid it out and removed a hefty packet, which he dropped unceremoniously in front of Neil.

“What –” Neil started. He stared down at the stapled pages. The cover showed a cartoon of a smiling boy holding up a four-leaf clover, headlined above: “Junior Harvester Scavenger Hunt.” He frowned at it. “I’m not a cub scout.”

“You’re certainly not a gardener,” Andrew responded. “Even my helpless cousin can grow his own spearmint.”

Neil glared at him. “Do you just keep a mental catalogue of what  _ all _ your customers have ordered?” he demanded in his frustration. “I don’t get good light in my apartment.” It was hardly a good clue to where he lived, but he still couldn’t believe he’d said it.

Andrew continued unperturbed. He tapped his index finger twice on the packet. “If you can do it right,” he said, “I’ll consider showing you the hemlocks.”

It was condescending.

It was far from a guarantee.

It was a big hit to his anonymity.

Neil went home that night without the rosemary he’d left the house for. The Junior Harvester packet was folded in his back pocket.


	2. Attempt the Impossible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, some of these plants are imaginary.

It took Neil six hours to find a perfect four-leaf clover. That is, one he hadn’t stepped on like the first one he’d found. Okay, maybe the first three.

“Who even uses four-leaf clovers anymore?” he'd grumbled to himself as he tramped back into the city, covered in grass stains and dirt, and probably a little sunburnt. He made a note to himself to bring up this point with Andrew; there were a dozen other ingredients that worked better for whatever it was that you wanted a four-leaf clover for.

“Try substituting dillweed for clover in the Luck in Spades potion,” Andrew answered quite easily. “See what happens.”

Let’s just say that if Neil had a security deposit, he wouldn’t be getting it back.

The day after that, Neil made eight attempts at collecting Larkspur root before finally getting one out intact. He promptly squashed it when he tripped over a rock. The next day, it took him three more tries to get another. When he brought it by the shop, Andrew informed him that it was rotten.

After one very productive weekend, Neil brought in an entire box of his collected ingredients. Andrew dumped the whole thing because the Cherry Laurel branches were touching the Mercurial Cherry blossoms, and apparently, that ruins everything.

(It does. Neil tried using some twigs of Cherry Laurel that had spent a couple hours beside Mercurial Cherry blossoms, and had to vacate his apartment for three hours.)

After a month and a half, Neil finally had half of the ingredients in the packet checked off. He’d also brought in at least a hundred dandelions and been told they weren’t symmetrical enough.

Today, he had a clump of Faerie Phlox to show Andrew, along with a hopeless handful of dandelions he’d grabbed along the way. Andrew, though he probably expected them to be up to his standards about as much as Neil did, still spent several minutes meticulously examining them. After telling Neil that his Phlox wouldn’t hold up in a high-stakes potion, of course.

It had been nearly twenty minutes since Neil had arrived, and he honestly wondered what Andrew could be looking at in a dandelion for that long. Just as he was trying to decide if it would be a terrible idea to interrupt, Andrew set all of the weeds aside and headed for the back room.

“Um,” Neil said, wondering if Andrew had forgotten he was there.

Andrew glanced back. “Follow,” he said impatiently. He continued through the door, labeled “Do Not Enter” rather than “Employees Only.” Hesitantly, Neil went after him.

He couldn’t have imagined what was beyond that door. It would have been impossible to have a greenhouse in the back room of a tiny shop stuffed into the corner of a dilapidated ten-story building in the middle of the city, but it seemed that Andrew had created the next best thing.

Various lights dangled from every beam – fluorescent, incandescent, LED, UV. The room was so filled with planters and the tables holding them at hand-level that it looked near-impossible to navigate without bumping into something. The variety of plants in here rivaled and possibly even surpassed that in the shop out front. Some, Neil couldn’t even recognize.

Half-hidden by the leafy fronds of a palm, a single window interrupted the side wall, completely blacked out with a heavy sheet. Andrew caught him looking and said, “Luzatine is useless if it gets any artificial light.”

Neil caught himself before he could frown at the vaguely familiar term. He knew it was slang in this part of the US, but it was taking him a moment to remember what the actual name of the plant was. It came to him within a second: Sun Satin, named for its soft, bright yellow petals. It had a couple of relatives in orange and violet, but those didn’t do much in terms of magic. In fact, Neil thought he remembered a story of a pinch of Orange Satin, mistakenly added to a potion, sapping all the magic right out of it. Possibly an old wives’ tale, but it got the point across: if you’re going for Sun Satin, you’d better make damn sure it isn’t just a light orange you’re picking.

Neil noticed that Andrew was watching him. It was a test, he realized: to see whether he recognized the name. It was only a brief panic: if he knew it, he _could_ be from the area; if he didn’t, he certainly wasn’t. He would rather give away nothing, but a possibility was always better than a certainty, unless that certainty was false.

“I didn’t know Luzatine was so sensitive,” Neil said carefully. “I didn’t know any plants could tell the difference, actually.”

Andrew revealed nothing of his thoughts. “Most cannot,” he said, going on as if they were speaking of plants with no subtext and no secret motives. “Luzatine is a special case. A son of a bitch to grow, really. But it sells well.”

“It would,” Neil agreed. “What’s it best for? Healing potions?”

Andrew shrugged. “Sometimes. It also does well in a particular breed of concealment potions. Though, I suppose you haven’t worked your way up to those yet.”

Neil was almost as affronted as he was anxious. Here was Andrew, heavily implying that he knew Neil was using concealment potions. But also, here was Andrew, heavily implying that Neil didn’t have the skill for a _potion_. That was just unacceptable. He would admit Andrew’s superior skill at procuring herbs, but for all he could tell, Andrew might have never brewed a potion in his life.

Before he could start a protest of one or the other, however, Andrew cut him off with a bored expression. “You haven’t bought any,” he pointed out.

“W-well,” Neil sputtered. “How do you know I didn’t buy it somewhere else?”

Andrew shrugged. “Luzatine is not something to fuck with,” he said. “You can buy your basil in the supermarket, but you should pay more care with your vendor on certain things.”

“And you’re _so_ sure that you’re the best in the city,” Neil said irritably.

“Hmm,” Andrew replied. “I do get a lot of repeat business.”

“Yeah, from anyone who doesn’t care about customer service,” Neil muttered, wondering just who these repeat customers were. _He_ had never seen any.

Andrew ignored that comment. “Come here,” he said. He began to weave between the planters. Neil was forced to follow his moves exactly, or risk knocking something to the ground. Based on how seriously Andrew seemed to take his plants, Neil doubted that he would be very forgiving if some precious herb ended up upturned on the ground.

Andrew stopped in front of a small patch of dandelions against the far wall. He examined them for a moment before plucking one from its stem. He handed it to Neil. “Look at this,” he said. “I want you tell me exactly what’s different about this dandelion from the ones you brought me.”

Neil frowned at it. It was very tempting to say that it looked like a dandelion, like all of the flowers Neil had brought in had looked like dandelions. He had a feeling, however, that he was not going to get any further with Andrew unless he did this. So, maybe he would spend a couple of minutes squinting at a dandelion. Fine. Then, Andrew could tell him whatever trick he had for this, and Neil could move on to more interesting things. Like Hemlock’s Blessing.

Andrew pulled a pad of paper and a golf pencil from one of his pockets and set them on the edge of the table, beside the planter. “You can take notes if you need to,” he said. “I’ll be back in half an hour. Do not touch anything else.”

Neil stared as Andrew began to make his way back across the room. “What?”

Andrew stopped walking to glance back at him. “I’m sure you’ve been left alone longer,” he said.

Neil glowered at him. “You surely can’t be expecting me to spend _half an hour_ looking at a plant!”

“Perhaps if you had spent two minutes looking at them in the wild, I wouldn’t have to,” Andrew replied. And with that, he left Neil alone in the plant room.

For the first minute or two, Neil glared grumpily at the door Andrew had left through. When that got boring, he scanned the walls for another door, which he didn’t find. Normally, a room with a single exit would make him nervous, but strangely, he felt safe here. Also, if it really came down to it, he could always use that metal stool to break the window and get out that way. It would fuck up Andrew’s Sun Satin, but that would hardly be on his mind in a scenario where he needed to escape past them.

After that little musing, Neil decided to actually do what Andrew had told him to and examine the dandelion. It still looked like any other dandelion.

Ten minutes in, Neil chanced movement a few feet in either direction. There were clovers and buttercups growing alongside the dandelions, and various shades of tulip growing in the next planter over. Neil didn’t know of any potions that called for tulips, but they did look nice in the space.

Then Neil nearly knocked over a tiny pot perched on the end of the table and decided to return to where Andrew had left him. Whatever plant it was, it wasn’t flowering yet, so Neil couldn’t quite pick it out, but considering it was growing alone rather than in a larger quantity like most of the plants here, it was probably either rare or difficult to grow. Again, Neil would rather not piss Andrew off by ruining his stock. (Though, if he did have to leave in a hurry, he would certainly be fucking up more than just the Sun Satin; this place wasn’t exactly organized with evacuation in mind.)

Neil spent another five minutes with the dandelion. He counted the leaves on several of the clover plants. He stared at the door some more. He stared at the dandelion some more. This felt like an exercise in futility.

Still, there was little else to do, so Neil kept his eyes on the flower and let his thoughts wander. He wondered if Andrew was the only one taking care of all these plants. If he had anyone else who helped keep them watered, or helped gather them when they’d matured.

It stirred something in him to think of Andrew spending hours in this room, moving methodically from plant to plant, trimming leaves and pulling weeds. He wanted to know if Andrew’s face looked different when he was tending his plants, if he wore that thoughtful expression Neil thought he’d seen for half a second while he was reading at the counter.

Neil startled as Andrew opened the door on the opposite side of the room. He hadn’t realized it had been thirty minutes already.

Andrew stopped just past the door and crossed his arms, looking expectant. Neil winced. “Um. Hi.”

Andrew’s features fell into cool disappointment. “Did you do nothing while I was gone?” he asked, making his way through the makeshift greenhouse without hesitation; he knew where each plant was and exactly how to walk to avoid disturbing it. That thing in Neil’s chest stirred again.

“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be seeing,” Neil confessed as Andrew came to a stop before him. “It’s a dandelion. What’s so important about how the tiny little… thingies are arranged around the other tiny thingies?”

Andrew took the stem from him. “Close your eyes.”

Neil looked at him doubtfully, but Andrew gestured for him to go on, and Neil forgot his uncertainty. He closed his eyes. He could still feel Andrew’s presence, but not in a bad way. He was blinded and in a space that Andrew knew far better than he did; it should have felt like a threat. It didn’t.

“Open,” Andrew said after a moment. Neil opened his eyes, seriously questioning what the point of that had been. Andrew was right where he’d left him, and so was everything else in the room. Then Andrew said, “Did I turn the dandelion?”

Neil blinked at him. “What?”

“Presumably, you have been studying this dandelion,” Andrew elaborated. “Did I turn it?”

It was impossible, Neil thought. There was no way that he would be able to tell. Whatever Andrew expected him to see, Neil’s eyes weren’t equipped to see it. There was no way to answer, except to guess. It was the only thing he could do. He glanced down at the dandelion, and –

“Oh,” Neil said. He blinked, startled. He had to be imagining it. There was no way that this dandelion looked different from a slightly different angle – it was a _dandelion_.

“You see.” Andrew tossed the dandelion at him. “That is what you look for.”

Neil scrambled to catch the dandelion as it fell, then brought it back up to his face. He squinted at it, and finally, spotted the tiny flaw to its symmetry. He still couldn’t believe it would make a difference, but it was there.

“Wait,” Neil said, looking up at Andrew. “You said this was different from the ones I brought in!”

Andrew shrugged, unbothered. “You did not know the difference,” he replied.

Neil narrowed his eyes. “Were all of the dandelions I brought in _really_ asymmetrical?”

“Hmm,” Andrew said. “If I asked you to bring me a sprig of lion’s breath, and you brought in one of every flower in the forest, and just happened to have collected lion’s breath along with it, what would you have learned?”

“Well, I would have learned what lion’s breath looked like,” Neil muttered.

“And if I asked you to bring me a stone with a hollow core, without breaking it open, what then?” Andrew asked. “Would you bring me the entire riverbed?”

“Well, why not?” Neil demanded. “If you’re just going to demand impossible things –”

Andrew held up a finger. “Was the dandelion impossible,” he asked, “or had you simply not determined what you were looking for?”

“You didn’t _tell_ me what I was looking for,” Neil argued, frustrated.

“Neil,” Andrew said flatly, “I cannot go through every variation of every plant with you. Either you learn to see these things without someone holding your hand, or you will never stand on your own feet.”

Neil ground his teeth. He felt slightly humiliated. Why was this even important to him? Why did it matter what this one herbalist thought of his abilities in plant gathering, anyways?

“You can find someone else to teach you,” Andrew informed him. “It won’t hurt my feelings, and it wouldn’t be the first time.”

Neil’s first reaction was panic: he didn’t want to learn from someone else. His second reaction was surprise. “You’ve taught others,” he said.

Andrew shrugged. “I am not sure that they would phrase it that way.”

“All of them quit?” Neil asked.

Andrew twisted his mouth into an ugly smile. “All of them chose to learn from someone else.”

Perhaps that should have turned Neil away. He hadn’t been prepared to quit only over the dandelion, and he couldn’t imagine that anyone else would have been – but surely that meant that Andrew’s rigidity only ran deeper. Apparently, he’d scared off however many people before, after all.

But Andrew, he still believed, was the best. His reasoning for putting Neil through this exercise made sense, even if it was infuriating to have been subjected to. It was a hard lesson, but if Andrew’s examples were any indication, it extended beyond picking out dandelions. The point wasn’t that he had succeeded, but that he understood how he’d done it.

He looked down and twirled the dandelion still in his hand. So, maybe Neil hadn’t ever thought of gathering his own herbs before this, and maybe it would be grueling to learn. Maybe it wouldn’t even be worth knowing; it certainly wouldn’t save his life if his father found him. But Neil was determined now. If no one had ever made it through Andrew’s training before, so be it: Neil would have to be the first.

He looked up at Andrew. “I can do this,” he said. “I’m not giving up.”


	3. Growing Interest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey...  
> So, sorry about kind of... completely dropping the ball there. I did have this done, but there was some editing/rewriting to do. And, well, I had a bad couple of weeks, which led to a few weeks of trying to catch up on the homework I hadn't been doing, and then there were tests. And I just really didn't feel up to working on this, as much as I knew it wouldn't be as hard as I was making it out to be.
> 
> But here we are with an update! Thank goodness! Sorry for the wait!

Hours after Neil had gone home – or wherever it was he slept – Andrew stood in the greenhouse. He held a pair of trimmers in one hand, a watering can in the other, and was trying to decide which to use on the shrub of Golden Celebration before him. The door behind him creaked open, but he didn’t turn; the shop had been closed for hours, and of the two other people with keys, only Nicky would dare enter this room.

“You’d better not be touching anything,” Andrew warned after a moment. Of course, Nicky probably _was_ touching something: stroking the leaves of a soft-looking plant; poking at a speck of dirt; turning a tiled pot. Andrew was very careful about which plants he left by the door.

Nicky sighed. “Aaron says we’re out of feverfew. Do we have enough in the shop, or should I tell him to go out for it?”

Andrew clipped a stray leaf and spun the stem between his fingers. “I just restocked his cabinet,” he replied carelessly. It would have been a stupid question even if there wasn’t plenty of _Tanacetum parthenium_ upstairs. Aaron was the main benefactor of Andrew’s craft – so awful at healing potions, yet so determined to brew them. Andrew’s skill with herbs was perhaps most of what stood between Aaron and useless mush.

And when had Andrew ever cared if his own supplies were in odd quantity? He only grew half of these plants because he couldn’t rightly claim to sell magical herbs without them. Or perhaps it was for the challenge – after all, the occasional vial of Hemlock’s Blessing fetched a pretty sum, but Andrew only bothered with it because each tree was its own challenge, a puzzle without pattern, and that kept it interesting.

And now Hemlock’s Blessing had brought him Neil. Shouldn’t that be enough to teach Andrew that nothing good came of collecting it? He’d put a vial on a shelf and invited so much complication into his life. Never had Andrew met someone so determined to use brute force in an intellectual field. Neil must have picked an entire field clear of _Taraxacum officinale_ by now.

“Andrew?” Nicky prompted Andrew from his thoughts. “You’re usually done by now.”

Andrew glanced over his shoulder at his cousin. “So long as Aaron isn’t cooking dinner next to his potions,” he said. It was a dodge and he knew it. He also knew that he’d been taking far too long with his shopkeeping today. He simply couldn’t help but dwell on Neil and his _Phlox nymphali_. Neil’s collection wasn’t nearly good enough for delicate work, but it was perhaps the best Andrew’d seen someone do on a first try. Pig-headed or not, Neil had some talent in this work, if he could only learn the creativity of thought he needed for it.

Nicky waited a moment, perhaps thinking that Andrew would say more, before trying a smarter tactic. “I thought you had the light time for these down to a millisecond,” he said. “It’s just weird that you’re still in here.”

It was, in fact, off-routine, but Andrew didn’t admit it. “I’ll open late tomorrow,” he said instead. And he would; the place was usually empty on weekday mornings anyways. That was clearly not the sort of answer Nicky had wanted, as he was still lingering. “I’m sure Aaron is waiting for his answer,” Andrew said as he precisely folded the leaf he’d clipped and placed it on one of his preparation trays, weighted down by a smooth rock with a hollow core. His fingers were damp from breaking the veins of the leaf. It couldn’t hurt, so he dried them against the stone. In three days, he would unfold the leaf and use it to plant a few seeds of _Solanum absconditus_ , which could be finicky about taking root without a piece of something else to support it.

Honestly, leave it to fourteenth century herbalists to name a plant “Devil’s Burial” when it so preferred to grow near gentler things. It was a fitting name for a highly toxic plant that tended to grow in an arc like a headstone, but Andrew thought the herbalists could have been a little kinder. Not to mention that Devil’s Burial could be an incredible focusing agent for many potions (so long as you weren’t planning on drinking them), but no one seemed to care about that.

“Maybe you should come upstairs, then. Show him where it is,” Nicky replied to Andrew’s dismissal. He was getting more daring these days, for better or worse.

Andrew set down his pruning shears. “When is it that you’re moving to Germany, again?” he asked sourly.

“Soon as you and Aaron have enough to keep the shop open,” Nicky responded cheerfully.

“Nicky,” Andrew pointed out, “we can only pay for food because we don’t pay taxes.”

Nicky scowled. “I wish you hadn’t told me that,” he complained. “Why don’t you _grow_ food? Would it really be so much harder than – than –” He gestured weakly to one of the plants on his right.

Andrew snorted. “No, I am sure that growing a farm’s variety of food wouldn’t be any more difficult than that little succulent,” he snarked. “Even you could keep Aloe vera alive, Nicky.”

Nicky did not seem amused. “I know you’re growing plenty that’s more complicated than your generic tomato. Hell, you could even sell the food. At one of those farmer’s markets or whatever.”

Andrew smiled sardonically. “I’m sure there’s quite a market for tomatoes grown side-by-side with nightshade.”

Nicky threw his arms up in exasperation. “You only have so much money from your mother, Andrew. You need to do something!”

Andrew was across the room in a minute, holding out his watering can as a threat. “Do not speak to me about that woman,” he growled.

It was probably the fact that Nicky knew Andrew grew nightshade – and a dozen other things that could kill him without warning – that had Nicky cowering against the door. Still, it was the reaction Andrew wanted. If he could convince his cousin of nothing else, this would be the point he drove home: the woman who’d provided half her DNA for him and Aaron was not to be spoken of. Ever.

“I – I’ll just see if Aaron needs any help with dinner,” Nicky said faintly, feeling behind himself until he managed to find the doorknob. He backed out of the greenhouse and shut the door behind him, leaving Andrew alone with his plants.

Good. Andrew’s shoulders relaxed. This was the way he liked it: no meddling cousins, no meddling brothers, no meddling Neil. This room was set up to make perfect sense to Andrew; it was always predictable. He could walk through it blindfolded on any given day and _still_ manage to water all the right plants.

Andrew sighed and set his watering can down by the door. He _had_ watered everything that needed to be watered today, and he knew it. Extra attention to detail was an excuse, and there was nothing to be reevaluated. If Andrew admitted it to himself, he just wanted space to think, and this was the best place for it.

Everything in the greenhouse was alive, fighting to be so, and though it sounded exhausting, Andrew also found it humbling. _Mentha spicata_ didn’t care if the government was falling apart, and _Echinocactus grusonii_ wasn’t worried about what anyone thought of it. They just kept doing their own thing, doing their best even when a weed threatened to choke them out. They kept life simple, not like people with their varying motives and secrets. What was a secret to _Mimosa pudica_? It bore its every fear right on its leaves.

But secrets seemed everything to Neil. Andrew made a point not to ask questions, and Neil made a point not to offer any answers. He wore suspicion like a layer of skin, evasion like a mask. There had to be quite a few concealment potions on the man because Andrew could smell the _Syzygium aromaticum_ when he was close. Neil didn’t buy it all at Andrew’s shop; no, that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? Neil had only ever bought one bundle of cloves, a small one. There had to be other shops. Neil probably knew more magical herb vendors in the city than Andrew did.

And yet, he wasn’t considering learning from one of them instead.

It meant nothing, Andrew told himself. Neil could be learning from them all at once for all Andrew knew.

Andrew retrieved the tray with the day’s harvest and flicked the lights off behind him. He set his haul on the counter in the shop proper and began meticulously tweezing groups of 343 _Anethum graveolens_ seeds into little sachets. It was a step Andrew didn’t need to take, but it worked better this way. He would leave the seeds to mingle their energies for seven days, and then they would be ready to be sold. Andrew had heard from more than one customer that they couldn’t figure out how he got his dill so potent. Really, it just required a little patience.

Neil was here an awful lot for someone learning from multiple sources, Andrew considered as he carefully set aside a few cracked seeds. If Neil was giving the same attention to other teachers as he was to Andrew, he wouldn’t have any time left to find the plants.

Or maybe Andrew was just too demanding, more demanding than any reasonable person would be. Maybe he asked too much, expected too much. As Nicky was wont to point out, Andrew had turned this pursuit into his entire life; he needed to stop thinking that other people would do the same.

And yet, Neil seemed willing. He’d completed more tasks to Andrew’s satisfaction in a month and a half than anyone else had in twice that time. Perhaps he was just determined to learn how to get to Hemlock’s Blessing. Maybe he had nefarious purposes for it – there were a couple of obscure, cruel potions Andrew could think of off the top of his head, and surely there were others.

But one did not need to harvest the Blessing themselves, did they? It might have been suspicious, but Neil might’ve offered Andrew a large sum to harvest whatever quantity he needed, and then to look the other way. And he hadn’t even taken the first vial.

Neil didn’t seem like the type to attack, anyways. He was the sort to hide in his hollows, an animal that had developed camouflage for protection – a hare, not a lynx. A preemptive strike wouldn’t occur to him. He wasn’t built to push people away like Andrew; Neil preferred to simply stand in their blind spots.

But what could he want Hemlock’s Blessing for? Surely it couldn’t be pure intrigue; the world was not simple like that. Not for people who hadn’t given up on putting themselves back together.

Andrew tied his second sachet closed. Maybe he should teach Neil how to handle his ingredients next. He wondered if Neil knew anything in that area. After all, he would have thought that no one would be foolish enough to keep _Prunus caroliniana_ beside _Prunus mercurius_ , but Neil had brought exactly that right into his shop. Andrew had had to burn sage all afternoon to clear the idea of it from his space.

But maybe Neil had seen it before. For Andrew, it was a never-do, but there were potions out there – less than a dozen – that needed the mingling of those two. It was generally considered a dark energy when Carolina Cherry Laurel and Mercurial Cherry got together, so probably all of them were meant to cause catastrophic harm. Andrew wouldn’t even stock the two on his shelves at the same time.

But Neil. There was something dark about him, too: something secret. There was some past he was hiding from, it seemed, and maybe that past even involved unspeakable deeds.

Andrew finished his last full sachet of dill seeds. There were several left on the counter, but not enough for a full bag. He swept them into a mortar, along with the cracked or underdeveloped seeds he’d kept aside, and set about grinding them up. He didn’t do this often, but his thoughts had him feeling uneasy. He added a bit of _Carum carvi_ to the bowl and ground it in with the dill.

Once it was all ground to dust, he dug out a brush and swept the powder over the shop’s door frame. He murmured quiet words as he went about the task. It was an old incantation, mostly fallen out of use, but it had more power when Andrew spoke it: it was the first he’d learned of protection magic.

When he was small and his latest foster father was a mean and frequent drunk, his oldest foster sister would put the young ones to bed every night and whisper these same words over them. Those days were long past by the time Andrew realized that it wasn’t the magic keeping them safe, but his foster sister actively putting herself in the man’s path. But it had felt like magic when he was six, and that was enough to give it an extra charge now.

Dill and caraway probably wouldn’t have been enough protection when he was a child, but now – in this shop where Andrew could feel safe without tricks; where treacherous things seldom came through the door, and none of those called this home – it was plenty. Vaguely protective herbs and vaguely protective words and intention were enough. It wasn’t a guarantee, but it wasn’t nothing.

It was a barrier for energy: the positive came in and the negative stayed out. Andrew didn’t really buy into the whole energy culture, with those silly ideas that your mood could affect your potions, but certain things were just true. There were people with cruelty in their hearts, and maybe, just maybe, a pinch of dill and caraway could tip the scale against them coming inside. After all, leaving dill to sit for seven days in a pouch of 343 seeds could make a difference, so why not a little dust on the doorway? And if it did nothing, it wasn’t much waste, using rejected seeds and a few minutes of his time.

And perhaps a bit of it would end up stuck to Neil’s clothes tomorrow, and really, that couldn’t do any harm. Andrew might have added some cloves in, even, if not for the chance of Neil smelling it and asking questions. If Neil even came by tomorrow. Andrew would be disappointed if he didn’t; that wouldn’t be much of a follow-up to committing to work harder than anyone else.

Once he’d used up all of the powder on the door and along the ends of the shelves, Andrew deposited the brush and mortar in a bin behind the counter. They would both need to be cleansed before being used for anything else. Maybe some herbalists weren’t so meticulous with simple mixes, but Andrew at least would not stand for cross-contamination.

There were a few other things from the greenhouse that still needed squaring away. Leaves and petals were pinned up for drying in the storage cabinet, and stems were braided. Seeds were scooped into jars, and roots were labeled for display. Finally, the only thing left on the tray was a small pink bud. This, Andrew pressed between the pages of a book that had been procured for such purposes. He had several of these, the ink fading on some pages, but the paper it was printed on was optimal for concentrating magic – and for not transferring it to the next thing pressed. Fifty percent hemp, fifty percent cotton: they just didn’t print like that anymore.

Andrew placed the book back on the shelf. He would remember that it was there, but pressing for magic was such a varying process: there was a good range of time for how long it should be in there. Andrew might have preferred a more precise deadline, a more sensitive task, but it just wasn’t realistic for this. Calculating the optimal time to the second or the day would require a very deep understanding of several sciences, so this was one thing that Andrew did just as well as his competitors and no better.

With that last task taken care of, Andrew cleared off his workspace and washed the tools he’d used. When that was done, it was nearly nine. Nicky was right; this was off-routine. Ordinarily, Andrew would have been done in the greenhouse by 6:30. He would have eaten dinner and then returned to do this shop-keeping. He’d completely neglected to eat so far tonight.

Despite being unusual, however, it wasn’t extraordinary; Andrew did sometimes work through dinner, for a tricky or interesting task. For this reason, Aaron didn’t even glance up from his potion book when Andrew came up the stairs. “Pasta in the fridge,” he said, and went on squinting at the page. This was probably because it didn’t make sense to him, which wouldn’t be helped by squinting. With potions, knowing the reason for a step could be as important as executing it, and Aaron lacked a natural intuition in this regard.

Andrew ignored this fact for the most part, so long as Aaron wasn’t planning to attempt something dangerous. In that case, Andrew tended to “run short” on ingredients, buying time to find something simpler that would achieve the same effect. It was really quite convenient to be able to live right above the shop, and Andrew would hate to revoke that privilege from them. But he really couldn’t risk something toxic threatening his stock – it would take an eternity to build it back up.

That was what Nicky was good for: his incessant chattering tended to accidentally tease out what Aaron was up to, and subsequently blurt it to Andrew. Otherwise, Andrew might actually have to hold a conversation with Aaron. There wasn’t any magic in the world that could make that happen.

Exhibit A: Andrew hummed in acknowledgement of Aaron’s words and in confirmation that he wasn’t a random stranger who’d somehow wandered upstairs. He retrieved the plate of pasta from the fridge, microwaved it, and sat down to eat. Neither he nor Aaron made any attempt at further conversation.

A little later, Nicky came in and complained that their evenings were boring. He talked Aaron into putting down the book, and turned on the television to some inane show wherein contestants attempted to make a potion with limited ingredients. Honestly, it was lucky that they layered on the protective spells, because Andrew could already see that one of the potions on-screen was going to end with an explosion.

Well, perhaps Aaron would learn something from that. Andrew sat back in his chair. He wondered if Neil watched shows like this. He smirked to himself: Neil seemed like the type to not even own a television. Probably, his entire life revolved around making protective potions. Making protective potions, and now Andrew.

No. Not Andrew – Andrew’s tutoring. Neil was trying to learn about herbs and ingredients, and Andrew’s company was just a part of the process. It meant nothing.

“Hey, Andrew,” Nicky called over to him. “Is this going to be our first family night? Are you actually staying for this?”

Andrew gave him a flat look. “Just until station three blows up.”

Nicky scowled, but Aaron glanced at him doubtfully. “I really don’t think –”

Station three blew up.

Andrew calmly stood and brought his empty plate to the sink. He retreated to his room amid the distraction of Nicky exclaiming, “Holy shit, give me the remote, I need to see that again!” and Aaron arguing, “We already watched it three times!”

Alone in his bedroom, Andrew was able to tune out their noise. It left more room for thoughts of Neil, which snuck in as he knelt before the small bookcase of texts too useful to leave in the shop. He tapped his fingers along spines until he came to a large volume regarding simple potions.

The chapter on healing potions was well-read; simplifying Aaron’s ambitions was a necessary skill. Tonight, however, Andrew turned to a different chapter. He spent the evening reading every word the book could offer on protection potions, imagining Neil mixing each one.

He wondered, actually, just how many of these Neil knew. How many he was hiding behind right now. He wondered what texts Neil had access to. How he’d started learning. And although this had been an attempt to look through Neil’s eyes, Andrew wondered if he’d ever have more answers than questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Andrew is a huge plant nerd who thinks in scientific names... (some of these should be understandable from context, but I'll list them all)
> 
>  _Tanacetum parthenium_ = Feverfew  
>  _Taraxacum officinale_ = Dandelion  
>  _Phlox nymphalid_ = Faerie Phlox (a made-up plant)  
>  _Solanum absconditus_ = Devil's Burial (another made-up plant)  
>  _Mentha spicata_ = Spearmint  
>  _Echinocactus grusonii_ = Golden Barrel Cactus  
>  _Mimosa pudica_ = Shameplant / Touch-me-not (a plant that curls up its leaves when touched or shaken)  
>  _Syzygium aromaticum_ = Clove  
>  _Anethum graveolens_ = Dill  
>  _Prunus caroliniana_ = (Carolina) Cherry Laurel  
>  _Prunus mercurius_ = Mercurial Cherry (made-up)  
>  _Carum carvi_ = Caraway
> 
> Wow. Sorry there were so many!


End file.
